:: travellingcari.com ::

Officially became a ‘wrap’ this morning when my backpack arrived. Glad that it arrived in one piece, it didn’t have any exciting adventures. Just seemed to want a longer layover at LHR since it arrived at JFK on BA 113 on Tuesday. I still think what happened was it made it to London on the earlier flight from Geneva and then they couldn’t find it when they went to load the luggage for BA115 on Monday.

When I think about the trip as a whole, I get Rainbow Tour in my head:

Let’s hear it for the Rainbow Tour
It’s been an incredible success
We weren’t quite sure, we had a few doubts

That’s a change. When I think about travel it’s usually Truckin’ i.e. “… Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.” but I don’t think this trip was quite long enough for that designation.

I wasn’t sure what to think about the two classes initially. I wasn’t sure how intense they were going to be. I mean I’ve handled two semesters of grad school well, but I wasn’t sure about four weeks of class. I also wasn’t sure about four weeks in Prague. Boland summed it up well when he said “People don’t come to Prague for two weeks–they come for three days or three months.”

I like Prague, but I don’t love it. It’s a fun city for a visit, but culturally, it doesn’t have enough to keep me interested for four weeks. I think that’s why, as was the case last time, I travelled out of the country every weekend. The class trips (Terezin, Karlovy Vary, Cesky Krumlov, Kutna Hora) allowed me to see the other parts of the country for free so I was glad to use my weekends to see other places.

My favourite city was still Rome, with Berlin a close second. I’m a history geek, I can’t help it Speaking of being a history geek, I’m currently reading Bruce Feiler’s Walking the Bible (I have Where God Was Born on my TBR) and I’m loving it. We had a good discussion in C&HT re: no one questioning the existence of Caesar, etc due to all the monuments ‘proving’ his existence yet people question the existence of biblical figures because there’s no ‘proof’. I don’t know what I believe, but reading the book makes it interesting to think about especially in light of these two discoveries: Herod/Hatshepsut. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it even more this weekend when Mom and I go to the King Tut Exhibit at the Ben Franklin Institute.

Why isn’t Auschwitz on that list? It is in the sense that it was an amazing educational experience, but I hesitate to call it a favourite. It just seems wrong.
I’ve updated the categories here so that Europe: Summer 2007 shows all the posts from the trip.

I’ve been doing the research for my papers and have tentatively settled on: Socio-Cultural Impacts of Hosting an International Sporting Event in a Non-European Destination and The Impacts of Historical Tourism in a Region. For the sports paper I’ll look at what happened in Nagano, Sydney as well as Japan/Korea for the 2002 World Cup and for the C&HT paper I’ll look at the reuniting of Europe v. it’s history of division. I think both will be interesting.

On another note, while I was travelling in Australia, Skyring said something along the lines of that I was wandering around, leaving a trail of books in my wake. I think I did it again

London: The Sun in My Eyes
Rome: Travels with Charley: I definitely had the most ‘fun’ with this book and am toying with writing it up for BC. Actually started the write up but have stalled.
Prague: 9 books (!) I figured the guide/language books woud go to far better use there than coming back here. Acually, make that eleven! Forgot I switched Crossing Zones midway.
Zurich: My Kind of Place

There would have been more if I had a releasable book at the right time. Now I just need to get better about BCing locally. That would make for two active Rockland County BCers. Christine, do you think your aunt wants some company or enjoys having the county to herself?

I’m also in the process of cleaning up my list of books released in Australia, which is the only one I ever really tracked well. I’m curious to see how many more have been caught. That list is a mess culled from a download of my bookshelf, but I’m cleaning it up to show the essentials and I’ve gotten through “G” so far.